Papas Fritas

Life with a Super Sniffer is never easy. Those of us both blessed and cursed with an oddly strong sense of smell are always the first to notice a fart, or a field of flowers, or a dead skunk coming up in 5...4...3...2...there it is. We can also detect if your large aunt Sally has been passing out hugs to her favorite nephew, or if your grandma is making her famous salmon croquettes, or if that skanky girl at your work who still thinks wearing Loves Baby Soft is "neat-oh" has been hanging around your cubicle again....

But let me get to the point.

On Mondays it has become my habit to stop in for a pint or two at The Londoner in Addison after work. No, I'm not turning into Faye Dunaway's dear old barfly (I would have mentioned Micky Rourke instead, but everyone gets so darn sad when they are asked to ponder Mickey Rourke), rather I'm killing time between the end of my workday and the beginning of my metalsmithing class down the street at the Craft Guild.

This past Monday I had gone to Payless ShoeSource to get some cheap flats I could wear around town for my upcoming trip to San Francisco. I found these:



Cute, I know. And super cheap - like around 12 dollar something. So I'm wearing them on Monday evening as I eat my bread pudding, sip my Blue Moon (with orange!), and read Laurie Notaro's The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club when I notice a smell. I think to myself, well that's not exactly a British smell, now is it? The guys around me are just drinking beer. One of them looks like he emptied the tap on his own, and one of them is older than the Garden of Eden, but none of them is eating anything. So why do I smell McDonald's french fries??

I look around, shift my legs so that now my left leg is crossed and propped up on my right knee. Dangit, there it is again - not Wendy's, not Burger King, but McFreakinDondald's. Then I realize. It's me. Better yet, it's my brand spankin' new 12 dollar something shoes.

My new shoes smell like McDonald's french fries. Well, alright then. What's a girl to do but keep munching on her bread pudding...la-dee-da-hope-no-one-else-notices...